WildStar’s PvP is just like the rest of the game - it’s fast, it’s furious, and it’s on a grand scale. For those looking forward to the action combat, the use of constant movement, and the telegraph system to add strategy, there are many ways to satisfy your urge to take down some dirty Dominion or Exile scum, depending upon your own loyalties. Carbine wants players to have many opportunities to play the game their own ways in WildStar, so that means stacking the deck when it comes to ways to get your battle on. PvP continues that variety, even with players able to level this way, beginning early in the game with Battlegrounds, then continuing into open Arenas, and finally into rated Arenas, and at cap, Warplots.
So what’s PvP in the game all about?
Open PvP types will serve as practice rounds and for the more casual or novice PvPers. Carbine is taking its PvP offerings seriously, and offering not just many choices, but different levels and types with an eye on today’s action MMO fans and even eSports. Open Arenas and Battlegrounds will welcome players before cap. During this time, matchups will be normalized by gear level, character level, and skills to ensure a more even matchup up to 49. Once you hit 50, matches will take gear score into account too, so you won’t have a crop of fresh level 50s thrown into matches with those who’ve obtained top gear.
Rated Arenas, Battlegrounds, and Warplots will be available, and matchmaking here will be based upon ELO as well as other stats like gear score at cap. For Warplots, personal Warplot ratings will impact the gear you receive as well as your teams matched when queuing up solo as a mercenary.
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Battlegrounds
You’ll be able to hop into PvP beginning at level 6, when your first Battleground opens up. This is Walatiki Temple, and it’s a riff on Capture the Flag. The second Battleground in the game at launch will be Halls of the Bloodsworn and open up at level 15. For the Battlegrounds, the goals are to have both attacking and defending on each side, and a series of rooms to capture as well as control points. In Walatiki Temple, these control points are the “Moodie Masks” tribal-inspired masks that spawn in a neutral position in the center of the space. It’s your team’s job to get in there and either nab the neutral spawned masks or go into your opponents’ base to steal their masks where they hang. Naturally, the other team isn’t going to let you go quietly, and the first to five wins the challenge. So it will generally come down to a mix of finding the right opportunity, effective defense of your teammates when they steal masks from the enemy, and guarding your own mask room.
In our demo, our band of Exiles played through a round in Walatiki Temple, and emerged victorious (Take that, Dominion!). Mainly, we had the right ingredients to grab a few neutral masks, as well as defend our own mask hub. I stayed behind on my Stalker in our mask room as a stealthed lookout of sorts and reported any goings on to my team, as well as initiated when necessary to buy time for our other defenders to arrive. We sealed our victory by stealing a mask from the enemy base, defending our treasure, and, after battling it out in our base in a last hurrah for the other side, sealing it with the full capture.
Halls of the Bloodsworn at 15 continues the devs’ desire to have players attack and defend and make tactical decisions to win. With multiple paths to victory, each round won’t go exactly the same as the last.
